Invisible Ink

"Invisible Ink" by Martha Leigh is the work of a real historian, based on human level experiences, obviously exceptionally well documented. She is presenting us with this amazing tapestry of her Familly life. Crossing Europe from Cernovitz to Cambridge, passing through Budapest, Viena, Paris and London, pausing in France, Switzerland, glimpsing Berlin, the characters in her Memoir are tracing lines of light through a continent reduced to fear, heatred and darkness during the Second World War. She is analysing with desarming honesty homosexuality seen from within the homely walls. Spiky subjects as antisemitism and jewishness, homosexuality and the condition of women, are aproched with a profound understanding of humanity in its lowest and highest. Acceptance, reconciliation, profund sadnes and intelectual joy are transparent through the pages of this obsessively realistic narative. Why obsessive, why realistic? Because otherwise it would be unbelievable! Classical music and literature are characters in their own rights in this memoir, where europeean languages are visas on so many passports. Martha Leigh's "Invisible Ink" is imortalising events that the storms of history are attempting to reduce to dust. from East London, with love, Simona Scarlett

Who could have imagined that piano lessons in Paris would lead to a wartime romance by letters involving several countries and end with a family life centred round Trinity College, Cambridge? More was of course going on below the surface. Author Martha Leigh has pieced together the intriguing story of her gifted parents. Ralph was a brilliantly clever but poor Jew from London's East End and Edith from a bourgeois central European family whose existence was threatened by the Nazis and Soviet rule. Edith was born in the cultured city of Czernowitz, then the farthest eastern outpost of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and went to Vienna to study for a music diploma for six years. She led an ascetic, solitary life until moving to Paris for more training, enjoying a wealth of musical and social opportunities. Here she gave Ralph music tuition while he was at the Sorbonne researching a thesis on Jean-Jacques Rousseau. While Ralph was home for the holidays, war broke out and he was unable to return. The couple always hoped to meet up but ended up keeping a correspondence through thick and thin. Letters were vetted by the censor, sometimes taking months to arrive. He was affected by childhood tragedy and a secret that burdened him for most of his life. Edith stayed on in France but with the German invasion life became increasingly precarious. So she fled to stay with her brother Reinhold and his wife Fa, both doctors in Bussières, near Lyon. When this became unsafe Edith had a dangerous and tricky escape into Switzerland where despite internment and restrictions she continued her concert pianist activities. Reinhold joined General de Gaulle's Free French forces and had a distinguished career in anaesthetics, despite initial resistance from French surgeons. His bravery shines through, particularly his daring and difficult rescue of his mother, also called Martha who had miraculously survived the war – despite great privations – from Soviet life in Czernowitz. Eventually Edith came to England and the couple married in July 1945. Despite proving impractical in household affairs, she combined a musical career with bringing up two children, John born nine months after the wedding and the author in 1954. By then the couple were living in Cambridge where Ralph – a distinguished linguist – was a Fellow of Trinity College. Edith gave concerts, mainly in Switzerland, before her early death in 1972. As Professor of French at Cambridge and visiting Professor at the Sorbonne, Ralph survived his wife by 15 years, being awarded a CBE at Buckingham Palace and the Légion d'honneur from France. When he died, he left behind a legacy of 49 volumes on Rousseau's correspondence. The author is to be congratulated on piecing together the story from a large family archive and her research, including visiting her mother's birthplace now in the Ukraine. She is very good at social history and describing European turmoil during the war and the legacies the conflict left on her family. She also shows insight in exploring her parents' feelings and the difficulties they faced throughout their lives. - Review in the Journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees, July1st 20021

-Gosh. This is quite some book. I'll probably ruin it by reviewing it, so just buy it and read it. End of review. That's all I wanted to say, honestly. But I will try to explain myself. Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there. It is only after her father dies and Martha begins to sort through his collected papers and correspondence, that she begins to make sense of these things that were never spoken. Ralph, her father, was a poor but gifted Jew from the East End of London, given a scholarship education. Edith, her mother, was a child with musical talent from a middle-class Jewish family in Eastern Europe. They had met in Paris during the 1930s and been separated by World War II. Somehow, they'd managed to keep in touch throughout the war years. This journey takes us from what is today Chernivtsi in Ukraine and was then Czernowitz in Romania, to Paris, Vienna, Switzerland and London. The correspondence between Ralph and Edith is full and rich and tumultuous, as you'd expect any love story to be, but it's also underwritten with allusion and implication, partly because of wartime and censorship but also because of personal secrets. Ralph is carrying a big one. There is so much detail in this book. From her father's papers and her own detective work, Leigh has pieced together a clear and compelling story of the war years and two families during the years leading up to the war. On her mother's side, there is the heroic resistance work done by her uncle, who later went on to be a medical pioneer, the survival of her grandmother and cousin, and the deaths in the Holocaust of others. On her father's side, there is poverty, anti-Semitism, and the tragedy of suicide. And there is a marriage borne of these years, with both parents brilliant and talented but scarred by experiences most of us could never fully understand. The tone is clear and direct for the most part but punctuated with small asides that humanise it, sometimes laconic, sometimes sad, sometimes loving. The weight of history settles on every page. Recommended.

I enjoyed this book. It was relatively easy to keep up with the names of those involved and the story is pretty amazing by the time you get to the end of the book. This a real look at the things people went through during the 1930's and 40's and how life changed for all involved. It was easy to connect with this book because the author made it feel personal, although some sections were more exciting than others. I think this would be a good choice for anyone who is looking into this fascinating period of history, regardless of it being more of a family memoir than a history book. There is a lot of valuable insight in these pages. The relationship between the two main people is strained at times, difficult and made more difficult by the circumstances they find themselves in, but there is a deep level of respect shared for one another and that was the best part of this account for me. I feel like that's something we can, and should, all learn from. This book is worth reading, give it a try.

This was a surprise for sure. I found this novel by chance and the blurb intrigued me enough to pick it up, but the writing is what kept me going. Leigh perfectly weaves the story of her family through decades, stitching together this scattered family across Europe. The research and time that went into this is not missed, through countless letters and documents we learn of her family's history, their happiest moments and darkest days. She writes this all with compassion and warmth, bringing these family members to life. There's bravery in telling her parents story, the raw and honesty that comes along with uncovering ones past. This was impactful, drawing on the importance of family but more importantly, love and acceptance. A wonderful memoir that I'm glad to have read.